Strip Club Guide 2014

Don’t make it weird.

It’s not that poles are more plentiful here than in other
American cities—though they almost certainly are—they’re just, well,
different.

Portland’s strip clubs are Portlandy: fueled by indie
rock, local beer, Oregon spirits and self-sure dancers who move to their
own beat and will have any mook who tries to fondle them tossed into
the street without a second thought.

In this city, though, such clubs are
outliers. Most of our strip clubs are laid-back, female-friendly and
relatively inviting to a wide range of people. I thought that long
before we compiled this guide to our favorite clubs, but I’m doubly sure
now that Willamette Week writers have visited 40 of them. We
found that Portland’s strip bars are a lot like Portland’s non-strip
bars—but with extra entertainment options.

Our goal here isn’t to whitewash
disturbing incidents tied to strip clubs—the 13-year-old who authorities
say was exploited at Beaverton’s Stars or the shootings outside East
Portland’s Mystic and Pitiful Princess—but most clubs aren’t like that.
So we’re highlighting the clubs we like, and that we think you’ll like
when you’re in the mood.

There are, of course, 100 reasons to argue that a socially
conscious newspaper shouldn’t get involved in the strip-club scene. But
so long as Portlanders like strip clubs, we think the city deserves a
literate guide to the best of them. This, we’re confident, is the best
such guide ever created.

For me, a strip club is a place where someone dances
without clothing for admirers who reward their performance with cash
tips. If you’ve been to a couple of these, you probably know that. If
not, check out Magic Garden sometime. It’s just a bar where people are
occasionally naked. That doesn’t seem weird to me.